Checking a new personal care product against its promise

The question

A personal care company had settled on the formulation for a new product for men, and its concept already set out what the product would promise.

The question was whether the product kept that promise in men’s own routines, through a whole day of use, for the brand’s own users and for men who use a competitor’s product. The company also wanted to hear how men would describe it, and how its pack might look.

Our approach

Men used the product at home before they ever read its concept, so their first judgments came from the product alone.

They filmed themselves applying it and answered prompted check-ins through the day, and when the concept came in partway through, they weighed its promise against what they had already lived with.

In focus groups, men compared it blind with their usual product, and the brand’s own users and competitor users met in separate groups.

What the team came away with

Filmed evidence of men applying the product and living with it through the day, so the insight and product teams could watch the experience for themselves.

A report brought the video diaries, online interviews and focus groups together, with a read of the words men used for the experience and of the pack options they explored, set beside the blind comparison with their usual product.

Because the experience was recorded before the promise was introduced, the teams could tell what the product delivered apart from what the concept set men up to expect, among the brand’s own users and competitor users alike.